Unmanned, remote-controlled vehicles are unmanned air, ground or other vehicles which provide specific functions at locations remote from a surveillance vehicle operator or controller, such as surveillance or reconnaissance, transportation of detectors or devices (e.g., weapons), and/or functioning as a decoy. Some unmanned vehicles, such as micro air surveillance vehicles, are designed to be small in size to allow portability and, when performing surveillance, to provide reconnaissance in a limited area close to the operator or controller. For example, in a military setting, an unmanned vehicle could be used to provide video reconnaissance for a military group, transport weapons, or function as a decoy. The operation of the unmanned vehicle is remotely controlled by an operator using a portable control unit and traveling with the military group. Manual operation of both the unmanned vehicle's operation and, if applicable, the video signals received therefrom can be controlled by a fully-engaged operator, requiring both attention and dexterity. For instance, to steer the unmanned vehicle, the operator is required to input commands via user interfaces to control movement in one or more linear or angular dimensions. When the military group is on the move, such levels of operator attention and dexterity is difficult to maintain. For example, the operator may be moving or may have to multi-task operation of the unmanned vehicle with other tasks and/or duties, dividing his attention between the portable control unit and the outside world.
Most unmanned vehicles have a travel plan uploaded to the vehicle and, thereafter, operate automatically in accordance with the plan and/or operate manually in accordance with manual commands inputted by the operator via the user interfaces. Accordingly, automatic operation typically requires the surveillance vehicle to travel to a specified location and/or altitude in accordance with the travel plan. Such automatic operation, however, may render the video information provided by the unmanned vehicle less usable for reconnaissance because changing conditions may change the locations, persons, or devices to be observed. Accordingly, manual operation may be required to assure high valued results. Yet, as described hereinabove, manual operation is difficult in many situations.
Thus, what is needed is a semi-automatic operation mode for the air unmanned vehicle to provide a reduced set of user input requirements and a reduced set of information displayed and a method and apparatus for automatically adapting user interfaces for the semi-automatic operation in response to an occurrence of changes in various parameters within an operational environment. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.